SAUCIER — Sins of the flesh

Another two children killed. Another 15 classmates injured, along with three adults.

New numbers to add to a sadly familiar scene. There have been hundreds of school shootings since Columbine shocked the nation in 1999.

But it is not just schools. There are mass shootings at malls, bars and on neighborhood streets.

The U.S. not only leads the world in mass shootings but has a disproportionate share, accounting for most global incidents.

Oh yes, the U.S. also has 219 million Christians, the largest Christian population in the world.

There is something terribly wrong when a country that claims Christianity in its very roots is plagued by such violence.

We need to talk about gun laws, community policing, and mental health services, but there may be something more fundamental.

In the opening paragraph of History of the Rain, Niall Williams writes: “My father bore an impossible ambition: He wanted all things to be better than they were, beginning with himself, and ending with this world.”

Perhaps we, too, need to start with ourselves.

Laws, crosses and plaques with the Ten Commandments will not make us a Christian nation. A Christian nation is not a “what” but a “how.”

It is not what we say that we are, but how we act toward the other.

We come up with all kinds of reasons why a shooter tries to murder strangers, but seldom look at our own role.

For Christians, Paul explains how we can and should bear that “impossible ambition,” how better selves can make a better world. 

In Galatians 5, he urges us to confront our sins of the flesh — and not just the usual suspects of “immorality, impurity, licentiousness ... .”

His sins of the flesh include “hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions ... .” None of which are in short supply today.

When we acknowledge our anger, our self-protecting biases, our “we versus they” vision, we open ourselves to the fruit of the Spirit.

There is only one fruit, but like the facets of a diamond, it reflects to the world in different ways: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

While Paul’s sins are about the old self, the fruit of the Spirit becomes the way in which the new self embraces, and ultimately betters, the world.

It is a description of a Gospel life, filled and fueled by the Spirit.

And I just can’t help believing that more kindness, more gentleness, and more love may save lives.